Abstract:

Consumers are constantly seeking for new experiences that will bring value in their lives. Similarly, brands pursue their own goals by offering such experiences and this way aim at engaging consumers. One example of brand-related experiences is branded exhibitions that act as engagement platforms where firms and consumers bring in their own resources to co-create value. Within this context, the interest of this research is on examining how consumers interpret firm-provided symbolic resources by employing their own operand and operant resources to co-create value. Also, how value is perceived by the consumers in branded exhibitions is discussed. This is done by interpreting consumers’ narratives of their experiences in two different Louis Vuitton exhibitions.

In order to illuminate consumer experiences in branded exhibitions, I gathered data utilizing semi-structured interviews in two Louis Vuitton exhibitions – SERIES3 in London and Volez, Voguez, Voyagez in Paris. The interviews were transcribed and then analyzed by using analysis of narratives -method which involves finding different themes derived from the consumer narratives. At the same time, the theoretical framework of the research started to emerge. Interpreting the data through the lens of consumers’ identity projects and resource-based theory of the consumer resulted in four different activities of co-creation in which consumers use their physical, cultural and social operant resources to create value to their incomplete life projects and roles.

The findings indicate that in the branded exhibitions of Louis Vuitton consumers co-create value by consuming cultural contexts, social relationships, sense of freedom and utopian worlds. Firstly, the exhibitions generated cultural value when consumers encountered cultural contexts that are rich in symbolic resources to be used in their personal life projects and roles. Also social value was created when consumers interacted with different subcultures on different levels of intensity. By consuming freedom and utopia, consumers added utopian value to their life projects and roles in order to find their “true” selves and on the other hand, to realize their culturally constructed dream selves. As a conclusion, branded exhibitions offer a space for value co-creation where consumers can develop their life projects and roles through consumption and thus create cultural, social and utopian value to their lives.